In "The Main Idea of the Theory" (p. 12), Rawls offers an account of how people can come to live under the duties and obligations of a society without voluntarily expressing their consent to live in that society. This is a question that both Locke and Smith also discuss; Locke believes that both express and tacit consent explain how a society can legitimately claim power over citizens, while Smith believes that individual consent has nothing to do with how governments maintain power.
Rawls proposes another account of how society can assign obligations and duties to its citizens, which I find to be more convincing than Locke's: "No society can, of course, be a scheme of cooperation which men enter voluntarily in a literal sense; each person finds himself placed at birth in some particular position in some particular society, and the nature of this position materially affects his life prospects. Yet a society satisfying the principles of justice as fairness comes as close as a society can to being a voluntary scheme, for it meets the principles which free and equal persons would assent to under circumstances that are fair. In this sense its members are autonomous and the obligations they recognize self-imposed" (12). Rawls's account implies that a government is not legitimate simply because citizens enjoy and use the benefits/land belonging to that society, which is a weakness present in Locke's account of tacit consent. Rawls goes a step further than Locke in considering what a "legitimate" government really is: not just one to which people seem to have agreed to by living under it, but one that also conforms to principles of justice that would be considered just by all people in the original position. Other thoughts on how Rawls's interpretation of a "voluntary scheme" compares with Locke's/Smith's lack thereof?
I feel similarly about the convincing nature of Rawls's idea of a "voluntary scheme," as in comparison to Locke's ideas about consent, it seems more real. If a government / society is just, according to the ideal of justice as fairness then it seems that any rational individual would consent to the conditions. Rawls bases his idea of justice as fairness in its conception under the "veil of ignorance," a hypothetical state where all are equal and unable to influence the principles of justice for personal favor. Rawls proposes that under these conditions, rational beings would agree to a concept of justice grounded in basic liberties and the difference principle. Thus, any government that functions according to justice as fairness would be agreed upon by its citizens. I do have a question about this idea, as there are clearly governments that do not operate justly according to Rawls's conception of justice. Does this mean that citizens should then rise up against the government in an attempt to form justice institutions? What are the grounds for uprising and formation of a new government? He works through various forms of unjust governments and proposes a constitutional democracy as one of the main just institutions but doesn't really discuss what are the grounds to abolish a government / institutions. Maybe it's just Marx affecting me, but I want to know when Rawls thinks revolution is / is not justified. For example, while the political institutions in the United States are just in some regards, it is arguable that they do not fulfill the difference principle or the principle of fair equality of opportunity. However, since equal liberties is prior and is fulfilled (more or less) by US institutions, does that mean American citizens should be content? Just a thought...
ReplyDeleteNice point to highlight. It is often objected to Rawls that since the agreement in the original position is only hypothetical, it is not binding on actual persons..hypothetically agreeing to something is not actually agreeing to anything. But this misunderstands Rawls' point, as Lanie's post suggests. The point of the original position is to model the parameters of our actual concept of justice, i.e. "to make vivid to ourselves the restrictions that it seems reasonable to impose on arguments for principles of justice, and therefore on these principles themselves." [sec 4] If we agree that the original position models our actual concept of justice, such that the principles hypothetically agreed to reflect our actual concept of justice, then the conception that would hypothetically be agreed to, his two principles, is the conception that we are committed to by our actual concept of justice. The OP is thus, on his view, an "expository device" for taking our shared concept of justice and refining it into a specific conception. If the hypothetical agreement reflects our actual concept of justice, then either we must jettison some fundamental part of our actual concept, or we must accept the specific conception that it commits us to. (See sec. 1 for the concept/conception distinction)
ReplyDeleteI agree that Locke's notion of "tacit consent" is rather flawed and that Rawls has a better take on this by noting that the original position corrects for someone living somewhere involuntarily, because the original position leads to a a fair outcome, and who wouldn't want that?
ReplyDeleteLocke believes that under his theory, citizens are, in fact, "autonomous and the obligations they recognize self-imposed." His whole idea is founded on the notion that people consent to give up their rights to a governing body and are therefore agreeing to abide by rules they imposed upon themselves by joining the society. As Smith notes in relation to tacit consent, this idea is flawed because extenuating circumstances, such as property, culture, etc., prevent a person from being able to leave a society whenever they want. Therefore, even though they continue to live under a certain government, it does not mean that they consent to it; merely, that they don't have a better alternative. Rawls believes he corrects for this with the original position as a determinant of principles because, as aforementioned, it calls for a just society.
However, I feel that the flaw with Rawls' (and Locke's) argument is that the principles of justice are not agreed to by "all people," but rather all rational people. What about "irrational" people, or people with mental disabilities, etc. These are the people often worse off in society and if they are not included in the veil of ignorance then how can their disadvantages in society be prevented? I think this is an important aspect of both Rawls' and Locke's argument that gets overlooked.
I was also intrigued by Rawls' early mention of voluntary human consent to government. However, for him i do not think either the enjoyment of benefits/land or any notion of consent is relevant to one's duty to support and comply with institutions. He says, "if the basic structure of society is just, or as just as it is reasonable to expect in the circumstances, everyone has a natural duty to do his part in the existing scheme. Each is bound to these institutions independent of his voluntary acts, performative or otherwise."(99) I find this claim extremely interesting especially as we have not yet examined the 'original position.' The enjoyment of benefits is important concerning obligations, which, along with duties are completely contingent upon the justness of the institution to which they are owed. This may prove to have some relevance to fiona's interest in revolution.
ReplyDeleteOne thing I would add to this discussion of consent to be governed is Rawls' focus, unlike Locke, on the ability to modify contracts. Rawls discusses a state of "reflective equilibrium," where "By going back and forth, sometimes altering the conditions of the contractual circumstances...at last our principles and judgements coincide" (18). This equilibrium, Rawls writes, is not necessarily stable, "for even the judgements we take provisionally as fixed points are liable to revision" (18). This view of social contract seems more nuanced than that of Locke, where voluntary consent can lock one into a contract in perpetuity. Under Rawls' conception of a contract, the content of the contract is fluid, just as our notions of justice are fluid as we work towards a just social contract.
ReplyDeleteNice point!
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